A strong, long 7.9 earthquake with an epicenter in Guerrero state shook central southern Mexico on Tuesday, swaying buildings in Mexico City and sending frightened workers and residents into the streets.

It is nearly impossible to overestimte the tone deafness of the Obama administration. The man. Mr Obama, simply has no understanding of his role as President. In the things that Mr Obama has screwed up, this is a fairly small issue, but it does seem to characterize his stupidity.

What Florida Steve said. No, my first thought wasn't Malia, but I get Meade's point. If you have a daughter, it's instinctive to be protective of the daughters you know (even if only through TV and interwebs). (Not sure if Meade has a daughter.)

Having kids as part of the first family has always been an engaging experience for most of the country. Piss about the dad's politics, but this family is a pleasure. So were the Bush girls -- fake IDs and all.

Unfortunately, when I hear of these large earthquakes, the first thing I think is "uh-oh...we're next".

No. I didn't think of Malia at all. Frankly, while I wouldn't wish harm to her, her friends, or her mother, I think it would have been great if the earthquake had struck close enough to make her being there at all a huge story splashed all over the front pages of every newspaper in America.

I wonder what it says about us — or, specifically, Meade — that we think first of the one American we know is in Mexico right now -----------

That is called proximity effect -- can be applied to physical distance or emotional .. A stranger you don't know does not engender the same consideration as someone you know. In fact Google/Facebook are using this logic to selectively distribute info. They will tell you what is relevant to you. Just listen to the first sentence in this video:Eli Pariser: Beware online "filter bubbles" "A squirrel dying in your backyard is more relevant that people dying in Africa..."

Malia is there with 12 friends and 25 secret service agents and maybe Michele Obama -- not sure about Michele Obama being there, but it's so hard to find a complete story about her spring break trip....hmmm...

My first thought was how many taxpayer dollars were spent to pay for 12 friends to accompany her,& the 25 secret service agents to protect them. My second thought was the rules don't apply to Obama & his family because there is a travel warning on Americans going to Mexico as a matter of fact I think there is a ban on personal travel there. Maybe Malia was on a business trip?

Yeah, I'm judging. I'm a mom. One of my prerogatives.If I’m working to pay for someone else to take a vacation, I think it’s my prerogative to judge as well.

I wonder if the decision to allow a thirteen year old to have a Mexican vacation without either parent was motivated by the concern about the optics of either the President or the First Lady taking another foreign vacation so soon after the last one and that much closer to the election.

I suspect that the thinking may have been that they could hide behind the “don’t talk about my children” and it looks like for some of the MSM that may have worked. However letting a teenager travel to a foreign country without either parent – a bodyguard is NOT a parent or a babysitter – is unlikely to play much better.

Melia is on a school trip to Oaxaca, MX. I am not sure if she is in Oaxaca city or in one of the beach resorts. If the former then she is in one of the most beautiful of Mexico's colonial cities and is near one of the great ruins at Monte Alban. Much to do and much to learn. If, on the other hand, she is at one of Oaxaca's beaches she is on a beach trip and not so much to see or learn.

Melia, for you progressives, goes to a private school in Washington, DC., the Sidwell Friends School. The Friends part of the school's name comes from The Religious Society of Friends or, for you progressives, Quakers. That would, in some circles, make Melia's private school a religious private school though I think the religion is well played down.

Too lazy to include a link, but the United States Geological Survey has a link that identifies all earthquakes everywhere on the planet. They include Richter scale. It is really the go to place for earthquake information.

Hoosier Daddy: I think this is a school sponsored spring break trip. I am sure that all the kids are paid for by their parents including the Obama child. We pay for the Obama child's protection as we should.

This is no big deal. An earthquake in Mexico does not make the entire country shake and there are no buildings in Oaxaca taller than six or seven stories, if that.

Conservatives should chill out on this. A president's kid should be able to have a life and we should be happy enough to pay for her safety.

Malia Ann Obama (MAO) is in Mexico on a school tour of historical sites. Her mother, Michelle, is not in Mexico with her. The 25 memeber personal security detail is a mix of Secret Service agents and US Marines. There are also hundreds of Mexican police - Federal and local - handling the street, road, and building security.

This was originally only a small story about the frequent vacationing of the Obama's and the cost to the public. But, yesterday's censorship and intimidation by the Obama White House to quash the story has created a much larger story and concern. However, it may be easier now to convince fence sitters that it is possible for powerful people to scrub large amounts of personal historical information from public access in a short amount of time.

Surprisingly, Malia's safety was my first thought when I heard about the earthquake.

What is humorous here is that we weren't supposed to know about her being in Mexico. As you may know, yesterday several sites posted stories about her trip to Mexico, and then the White House apparently had them scrub or cleanse their sites of those articles. So, for a lot of us, the big story yesterday was not the Mexico trip with 25 Secret Service, but rather the cleansing of story about the trip from those sites (and, I think maybe they thought from the Internet).

Thorley Winston: Only the parents of geeks go with their kids on school spring breaks. This is not the kind of spring break that the kids of progressives go on where they get tattoos and pregnant. This is a school trip, I am given to understand, with plenty of chaperones other than the Secret Service.

As far as covering presidential kinder, I think the Clinton's did a good job keeping Chelsea out of the limelight. It seems clear to me that the Obama's use their children as political props when it suits their purposes. But what would expect from the bozo currently in the office.

Hey! Malia is 14, for crying out loud. This isn't a spring break trip in the sense of a college spring break. Pick on her parents all you like, but leave the girls out of it. Seriously. I don't have a problem with criticizing the trip or questioning why her parents let her go, but the personal stuff hinting that she's down there having a wild college-girl time...that's not cool.

'In light of today's earthquake, we can confirm that Malia Obama is safe and was never in danger' - Kristina Schake, Communications Director to First Lady Michelle Obama; Malia Obama is currently on a school trip in Mexico

So that's kind of embarrassing, after they made everyone erase the story yesterday.

I don't follow the lives of celebrity children. But whenever I hear of an earthquake I think about National Lampoon Magazine's parody of Jehovah's Witness publications and an article that asked "Are earthquakes famines and floods part of God's plan? Or is he just plain clumsy?"

Good for the president to allow his daughter to go on this trip and that the trip is in Mexico. As you might know, Mexico's tourism has suffered greatly because of the violence on the northern frontier. American's are afraid of Mexico and most other foreign places, but Mexico now in particular because of this violence. Permitting her to go shows the Mexican Govt. that we support travel to that country. The security detail for Malia is doubtless beefed up for the occasion but in general this is a good thing.

As to the scrubbing I am of two minds. In the old days the news people would have honored a president's request to keep such a trip quiet. Today, of course, the press is peopled with progressive scumbags who can't help themselves. There is no "need to know" about a kid's trip to Mexico. At least not in real time.

. I don't have a problem with criticizing the trip or questioning why her parents let her go, but the personal stuff hinting that she's down there having a wild college-girl time...that's not cool.

I could tell you stories about what my middle school friends did when they went on a school trip to Mexico (for Spanish class).My parents didn't let me go.

I will say the pictures of the trip that were on the web showed Malia with a lot of white girls. That's probably the real reason the WH wanted to get rid of the story, considering Obama killed the voucher program.

Roger J: You are right, of course, but the Mexican's are realistic people and do not want to create a society like ours where we are afraid of people slipping on banana peels. You can bet they do not want their dwellings falling around their ears and you can bet that the colonial buildings in Oaxaca have withstood more than one temblor in their time. But they do not have legions of people dedicated to making each other safe for this or that potential calamity. Thus it is that you see smiling people crammed into the back of pickup trucks hurdling down the highways without a seatbelt in sight.

MayBee: Grow the fuck up. Be a sad sack if you want but I am happy we live in a country where we are willing to protect the families of our senior elected officials. Whining about securing the lives of kids on a school trip is unseemly. Get a better job. Divorce your spouse. Do what you can to get rid of the chip on your shoulder. Save up and send your own kid to Mexico.

I think we need to give the president a budget for travel. He and his family can use that and only that.

As the security apparatus has become ridiculous, the price for each trip has soared. There's no reason they should travel as if that isn't true.It's only 4-8 years, and life not being normal is part of the job.

Let them live in a budget like the rest of us do, especially since it's our money they are spending.

She should be allowed to participate in school trips, and the Obama family should be able to take vacations. However, they have to know that, during these hard economic times, their choices will be scrutinized, especially since they've been telling us all to tighten our belts and make sacrifices (something we already know how to do but they obviously don't).

It also doesn't help that they put pressure on media outlets to scrub the story. Now, of course, in light of this natural disaster they couldn't foresee, the story is completely out of their control, and that they tried to control it i the first place is the bigger portion of the story.

Had they exercised discretion from the start by choosing fewer vacations, or opting for vacations that would put money back into this country, there would be less criticism.

Michael memorialized:MayBee: Grow the fuck up. Be a sad sack if you want but I am happy we live in a country where we are willing to protect the families of our senior elected officials. Whining about securing the lives of kids on a school trip is unseemly. Get a better job. Divorce your spouse. Do what you can to get rid of the chip on your shoulder. Save up and send your own kid to Mexico.

I just wonder why the President would ignore his own State Department's warning and have his own daughter go there in the first place.

Doesn't that sound like an unbelievably STUPID idea? Not blaming her because she's a kid and all...but, Obama, if you can't stand up to your daughter, how can you stand up to --- well, never mind. You've shown how that ends also.

Conservatives should chill out on this. A president's kid should be able to have a life and we should be happy enough to pay for her safety.

I should be happy to pay for his daughter to go to a violent hellhole and spend millions for her protection?

In what alternate universe?

His own State Dept says don't go there? Why should ANYBODY listen to them when HE won't?

Grow the fuck up. Be a sad sack if you want but I am happy we live in a country where we are willing to protect the families of our senior elected officials.

Can you explain why WE should be doing so?

Isn't that the job of their parents?

Is Obama spending the millions himself to protect her?

If not --- then she shouldn't go.

We're beyond broke. We're broke to a level nobody wishes to notice. We cannot afford this. Especially given the FREQUENT need to send security with the family for what is a LOT of vacation trips during these years where he ran up the debt more than anybody else before him.

I knew that Malia was in Mexico but I forced myself to forget as instructed by the White House.

Now I know again. Damn.

If you want to be President and accept the responsibility for sending hundreds or thousands of troops to their death on your orders, for causing the deaths of tens of thousands of our enemies, for setting policy that will affect the lives and deaths of millions in the U.S and across the world; then you should be willing to accept that your family will necessarily have to live a somewhat sequestered life during your term of service.

If Malia's presence creates a security risk that requires Secret Service and military protection and hundreds of Mexican police in support, then her presence creates a life and death security risk for the other children on the trip.

Shared sacrifice is all about who makes the sacrifice. Malia should have passed up the vacation.

I would not want my kids going on a trip with extremely high profile kids simply because of the potential for danger from crazy ideologues or fame-seekers. Sure, they have 25 guys who could probably defeat the Mexican army protecting them,, but that just reinforces the point.

While I am not in the Sidwell-elite class, so this would never happen to me, I would be pissed if my kids went on a school trip abroad with the president's daughter and the press ran with the story. If I was not already there, I'd do get them and take them home.

Maybe it's because I just watched that Liam Neesen movie where his daughter is kidnapped in Paris.

Spring break trips abroad for 13 year old girls is a new one to me. I thought the standard was wait til the 2nd or 3rd year of high school.

I imagine the girls' parents [who are probably in the 1%] had absolutely zero worries about safety since they knew, that whatever the destination, Uncle Sam and Malia's Dad would be providing security.

Pogo: So no school trips for the kids of presidents. Nice. I yield to no one in my radical right wingness but this is absurd.

Damikesc: I can see you are not a well traveled person or you would know that Oaxaca, Mx is not a "hell hole" as you describe it. The State Department has no warning and no advisory for Oaxaca, by the way.

Can't these people just eat their waffles without everyone making a big deal out of it. Afterall, it's just the first of their four year freebies. Just wait until the next four years of travel/party time take place.

A J Lynch: You are not a no good prick. I am. I am a no good prick who has sent, and will send again, my kids to Mexico on supervised trips along with trusted chaperones and guides. As a no good one percenter I am doing my level best to make sure that my kids are as well traveled as I can afford and I send them to private schools to ensure that they get the best opportunities possible. You may not value your children in the same way and you may wish your children not to come in contact with foreign cultures or think that Mexico is a hell hole as some other commenter put it. Not me. I send them off to learn Spanish where they actually speak Spanish. Worrying about the cost of this trip relative to the debt levels, ObamaCare and other outrages is like worrying about the flyshit in the pepper.

dunce: Of course she doesn't go to school with black kids, she goes to the most elite private school in Washington, D.C. Highly progressive, very Democratic, very select and very expensive. Do you think that Obama would send his kids to a public school in Washington, D.C.? Are you fucking nuts? D.C. schools are almost entirely black and are horrible.

From Harry S. Truman, who used his own stamps when mailing his personal correspondence, to Barack Hussein Obama, who puts every personal indulgence on our tab. Such has been the trajectory of the United States in my lifetime.

chickenlittle: I do not live in an "enclave." But I do not buy certain things I would like to have and instead invest that money in my children by sending them to private school. They would not learn Spanish in public school just because many of the kids are Spanish speaking and I seriously doubt your kids have learned it from their classmates. I have both taken and sent my kids to Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and El Salvador. No problems. Ever.

Allen-great to see you again. You have been missed. Was saying that to someone just the other day.

Garage-I would like to come to the pontoon/beer summit too. I was just up in Madison last week for the Friday Solidarity sing-a-long.

It never entered my mind about Malia until I saw this post. I guess I am insensitive. However having done mission work in Mexico I did wonder how people fared in light of the type of houses I have seen and been in when I was there.

@ Roger J - absolutely it does. What I was getting at is if that's the spin supporters are giving as the reason for the trip, education not merely a vacation, I don't see the information supporting that fact. Maybe part of scrubbed articles?

I'm with you. If education, heck even humanitarian, was the goal, there are plenty of safer places stateside. There's broadening horizons, and then there's just flat out idiocy.

Pogo: My parents couldn't afford to travel, much less send me off on excursions. I don't begrudge the children of the President of the U.S. (the current one I cannot stand but I do have some regard for the office)having a better childhood than I did, more experience than I did and I do hope that Malia will instill a love of travel in her children when she has them. Getting in a snit about this seems to me to be misplaced anger at an administration and president that does not have much regard for the financial condition of the country. I would not take this out on his children.

I do not know any details about trip to . Because every link I click has a 404 error message and the last one I got said "404 goddamnit I said there's nothing to see." And I'm over here thinking you don't have to drop a house on me, I can take a hint.

Hey! Malia is 14, for crying out loud. This isn't a spring break trip in the sense of a college spring break.

uh, 14 is a high school freshman. If you think freshman aren't sexually active...

Pick on her parents all you like, but leave the girls out of it.

Obama brought it them into it when up he called Fluke:

"The reason I called Ms Fluke is because I thought about Malia and Sasha... I want them to be able to speak their mind in a civil and thoughtful way. And I don't want them attacked or called horrible names because they're being good citizens"

ie. demaninding we pay for your birth control = being a good citizen

but the personal stuff hinting that she's down there having a wild college-girl time...that's not cool.

Wild college-girl time? I simply asked if she was on birth control and who was paying for it. Why is it okay for Obama to use his daughter as a political prop and then browbeat those who respond to it?

I lived without out-of-US school trips in grade school, high school, and college.

So can they.

Amen to that. Since when do 13-year-olds routinely spend spring break out of the country without their parents? Is living a bit like the 99.9% a small price to pay for being the daughter of the frakkin' President?

It also doesn't help that they put pressure on media outlets to scrub the story. Now, of course, in light of this natural disaster they couldn't foresee, the story is completely out of their control, and that they tried to control it i the first place is the bigger portion of the story.

This profile in courage - swearing at a woman, on a blog - brought to you by Michael, Internet Tough Guy.

I am happy we live in a country where we are willing to protect the families of our senior elected officials.

Me, too! Because otherwise we'd be on Mars or something. (Is there a country on earth that is unwilling to protect the families of its senior elected officials?)

Do what you can to get rid of the chip on your shoulder.

Then you'll be in a better position to get rid of the log on Michael's.

So no school trips for the kids of presidents.

Nope. When the school goes on a trip, the President's kid should have to stay in a small steel cage. (And by 'small steel cage', I mean 'the continental United States'. But I had to change my wording to try to let Michael look like less of a jackass.)

I know a lot of Mexicans personally, and even the poor ones worry about kidnapping. I consider it a significant failure in national security to send the daughter of the President to that lawless place. Imagine the disaster her kidnapping would be. These people cut off heads enough to scare Al Quaeda formerly in Iraq.

I lived without out-of-US school trips in grade school, high school, and college.

I couldn’t imagine expecting my parents to pay for an out-of-US trip when I was in high school much less middle school. Largely because I saw how hard they worked to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table.

When you have to earn your way through life, you appreciate where money comes from and the effort that it takes to earn it. When you’re used to living at the expense of others, I guess not so much.

That fact that someone as rich as the Obamas expects working class taxpayers like my parents to pay for an extravagance like this for their daughter . . . words fail.

Is living a bit like the 99.9% a small price to pay for being the daughter of the frakkin' President?

That's weirdly phrased.

Normally we say "[cost] is a small price to pay for [benefit]". But "being the daughter of the President" isn't a benefit -- it is a cost. I mean, I'm sure the daughters are happy their dad is important and famous, but don't you think they would rather not be going through puberty under the critical gaze of Obama's tens of millions of enemies?

Hell, remember when the Bush girls got busted buying booze underage and it was on every channel? Who here would have wanted that kind of scrutiny when we were in college -- let alone high school or junior high?

That aside, as a taxpayer I'm not interested in paying for their luxury vacations. The Obamas are rich, they should pay for all this stuff themselves.

No because I guess I am a self centered prick (or should that be c*nt) who thinks only of herself first.

We have been having many rashes of small temblors in our mountainous area and the water tables in have been dropping precipitiously. Over 6 feet in some wells just this year. I am surrounded on all sides by huge volcanoes that are not completely dormant. There are hot springs and geothermal steam activity nearby.

My first thought was...... "Damn I hope this isn't a re-awaking of the ring of fire and we get creamed by a volcano."

Not one thought to Malia, except how much her trip is costing the taxpayers.....again!

It takes a contingent of 25 to protect one presidential daughter? No, we're paying for security for the group. Perhaps it's the only way to guarantee security for Malia, but that, in fact, is what we're paying for.

Mexico with all its current security problems seems a odd choice for Sidwell's "minimester" trip. And any 14-year old girl deserves a life, but the First Parents and First Daughters should take due care that their private lives don't come at an inordinate cost to their fellow citizens.

The (attempted) scrubbing of the story is another matter altogether. If the WH can't stand the heat from the Obama family's gallivanting, then maybe the Obama family should stay home.

Bgates. A defender of women! Thank god you stepped in. Are you a defender of conservative cunts or progressive sluts or both or what? Let us know, but use a megaphone so we can hear you from up there on your high horse.

True. When they graduate from College and apply for their first job, nobody will want to hire them.

Whereas children who have normal childhoods are unable to find work. That's why the unemployment rate among recent college graduates is 99.99997% -- only Chelsea Clinton and the Bush girls can find jobs.

"Whereas children who have normal childhoods are unable to find work. That's why the unemployment rate among recent college graduates is 99.99997% -- only Chelsea Clinton and the Bush girls can find jobs."

You are being obtuse after saying something foolish. Being the daughters of a former POTUS will open doors for them--and keep them open for a long time--that will take a lot of hard work and perseverance to a kid who had a 'normal childhood' to even get to.

What is it with 'normal childhoods' anyway? They have chauffeurs, butlers, and go to an elite high school. They have an automatic halo in being first daughters. To paraphrase the singer, you can take this normal childhood and shove it.

Normally we say "[cost] is a small price to pay for [benefit]". But "being the daughter of the President" isn't a benefit -- it is a cost.

Do you really think that whatever media attention they receive now (and it’s mostly been focused on the Obama parents not the kids) is going to outweigh the benefits they’ll receive when it comes to college and their careers?

Hell, remember when the Bush girls got busted buying booze underage and it was on every channel? Who here would have wanted that kind of scrutiny when we were in college -- let alone high school or junior high?

I don’t think that the Obama daughters will ever have to worry about that kind of coverage since they’re not the daughter of a Republican president.

garage mahal said...A Romney win, and conservatives can go back to not giving a shit about the First Lady, her children, and their security detail. Until the next Democrat comes along.

Damn, he's right. I can't even conjure the spirit of what Nancy Reagan was like in the White House. And Laura Bush? The drive bys treated her like a hit and run accident: nothing to even slow down for.

Malia is on a rich kids' school trip with a group from her rich kids school. The school takes some not so rich kids on scholarship but only the rich kids get to go to Mexico on spring break.

This is called inequality.

Sidwell has outstanding resources, terrific teachers, a solid academic curriculum and many opportunities for athletic and cultural activities. Classes are small, and each student has a teacher-advisor who advises no more than 12 students. You can be sure that if your child goes to Sidwell he or she will be exposed to one of best educational programs in the Unites States.

Not so much if your child goes to Washington DC public schools.

I am pleased that Malia has this great school to go to. It's great that she can go with a group of her wealthier classmates to Mexico. I understand that she should not be constrained because her father is President, and thus am glad that there are 25 agents there to protect her and her classmates.

I do wish that the rest of the kids in Washington had school choice, even the limited choice that the Obama administration scuttled. I also wish the President and his fellow liberals would stop hectoring "the rich" and stoo pretending that somehow more taxes on the rich would assure that all kids would be educated like Malia.

The path to that result is far more radical that the supposedly radical President would ever entertain, and might involve offending some of his favored voting blocs.

This is human nature, as opposed to first thinking of those we have no personal connection to. But thinking first of those disconnected to us is not a higher morality, no matter how often we slip into claiming to value altruism over self-interest.

Care for those we have a connection to *can* lead to an understanding of the situation of those unconnected to us, and to compassion, but you have to do the close caring *first*.

I am pleased that Malia has this great school to go to. It's great that she can go with a group of her wealthier classmates to Mexico. I understand that she should not be constrained because her father is President, and thus am glad that there are 25 agents there to protect her and her classmates.

It isn't so much about Malia as a person but rather the rank (and I do mean as in smelly rotting rank definition) hypocrisy of the Obamas.

They presume to tell us all what to do. That we should cut back....eat our peas....that gasoline should be $5 or more per gallon to support their green wet dreams despite the severe financial harm it is doing.

They posture and preen and never EVER show any signs of taking their messages personally.

So while they openly disdain the United States, denigrate the country, denigrate the people and hold low opinions of 'we the people'.....they take every advantage to go on lavish, frequent vacations that cost the taxpayer hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Progressing through the countryside and the rabble, dragging with them their entourage of lackeys, hangers on, body attendants and security to rival the Royal Progresses of European Kings and Queens.

In fact, this is what Obama and Michelle think they are....royalty....our King and Queen instead of temporarily elected office holders and they do NOT want to give up the privileges.

I would not be surprised to find that this upcoming election will be the last one that the United States will hold.

"Thorley Winston: Only the parents of geeks go with their kids on school spring breaks. This is not the kind of spring break that the kids of progressives go on where they get tattoos and pregnant. This is a school trip, I am given to understand, with plenty of chaperones other than the Secret Service."

Who, other than progressives, can afford to send high school students (junior high?) to foreign countries for spring break?

No one I know can do that. And even those who manage to do fund raisers for a couple of years and scrape together money for a special trip to a foreign country, take only one trip, their senior year.

Should she have to miss out on activities all of her highly privileged school-mates undertake? If she were deprived in other ways, maybe not. But the cost of her bodyguards is not equal if she stays home or if she goes. And it's not as though she hasn't gotten to see a lot of amazing foreign countries already.

Being the daughters of a former POTUS will open doors for them--and keep them open for a long time--that will take a lot of hard work and perseverance to a kid who had a 'normal childhood' to even get to.

First of all it depends on what they want to do when they grow up -- having a President for a father does eff-all to secure you a job as a mechanical engineer or a kindergarten teacher.

Secondly, it will "open doors" with Democrats and close them with Republicans.

Thirdly, if they take advantage of those "doors" they will spend their entire careers -- long after any possible benefit has worn off -- fighting the perception that they owe their jobs to their contacts, not their ability.

Finally, the advantages you cite are due to Obama being rich and politically connected, not due to his being President. The daughters of the President don't have any advantages that aren't enjoyed by any other wealthy Washington insider. If he had lost the '08 election his daughters would be better off.

"It is about the hypocrisy of constantly complaining that the "rich" don't pay their fair share, when YOU (Obama and Michelle) are among those rich and live the lifestyle.”

There is nothing wrong with thinking that marginal tax rates should be 39% instead of 36% ... regardless of your level of income. You may agree or disagree. But there is nothing hypocritical about a rich person advocating for higher tax rates for rich people.

Do you really think that whatever media attention they receive now (and it’s mostly been focused on the Obama parents not the kids) is going to outweigh the benefits they’ll receive when it comes to college and their careers?

I grew up middle-class, went to a good state university, enjoy a good income as a white-collar professional, and have a decent house. All in all a nice American life.

So I ask myself: if I could, instead, grow up under a constant media spotlight, with millions of sleazebags like Fen attacking me for the crime of having the wrong parents and tens of millions more visiting constant hatred on those same parents (whom, whatever their flaws, I dearly love)... would I voluntarily do that, just so I could use my dad's contacts to score a better job?

Answer: HELL NO. No emotionally healthy person would choose to trade his or her childhood for a slightly better career.

Now add in the fact that Obama's kids were already the children of rich politically-connected Ivy Leaguers before he went anywhere near the Oval Office. What marginal gains are they getting from this? What, like some business will give a job to an ex-President's daughter but not an ex-Senator's? Please.

Synova. Me, that's who. I am as right wing as they come. I have been lucky in business. I can afford to send my kids on vacations at their spring breaks. This year, a few weeks ago, we were in London. Other kids have gone on ski trips, dive trips, climbing and hiking trips. I am seeing some ugly envy from conservatives on this thread that seems pretty leftyish. I am surprised.

I used to think being president was the hardest job in the world, and any perk was worth the cost.But now I just don't see it being so hard. The only tough decisions being made are about our soldiers in combat, but even then the generals do the heavy lifting. Other than that, it appears to be a lot of going where you want to go, talking about what you want to talk about, and blaming someone else for what isn't getting done.

With a budget, it would stop being an issue. If the president wants to use up the budget flying to New Mexico for a photo op, that's fine, it just means less money for a spring break trip.We could stop fighting over how much Laura Bush spent vs how much Michelle Obama spends. We would know they both got the same budget.

I said: (in response to, "this isn't your progressive college students getting pregnant and a tattoo spring break: "Who, other than progressives, can afford to send high school students (junior high?) to foreign countries for spring break?”

Meaning yes, it is (joking) a "progressive" spring break.

"I don’t know whether to laugh at the utter foolishness of the comment or revel in all this resentment of privilege. And you attack Obama for class warfare."

Now, do I *resent* privilege? When it's tax dollars, maybe a little bit, yeah. When it's someone lecturing about how the rich people are bad, maybe a little bit, yeah. Yes, Obama tends to the "class warfare" side of things, so it's also screaming hypocrisy. When I have a headache, screaming makes me cranky.

In all likelihood the vast majority of Malia's classmates are children of people who work in government, rather than children of the private, productive, sector. If so, it's all tax money in the end. I resent private sector success not-at-all, but I might, if a company was going under and laying people off and cutting pay for the poorest workers, suggest that a series of flashy vacations taken by the CEO or her family members was going to torque off those scraping by.

Lots of rich people send their 13 year old kids on fancy spring break tours. Not just lefties. Certainly not just the Obamas.

It's their money. They can spend it as they like. I imagine the trip will be educational for Malia (though any notion that she has "seen Mexico" should be avoided.)

As to the cost of all the security, that's just the world we live in. I don't think Malia should stay home just because it's costly to keep her from being murdered. The President and the President's family should not have to hide out in the WH because it's dangerous outside, and the only way to protect them is to incur that cost.

What bugs me is that while enjoying the fruits of his personal wealth and the national wealth, Obama demonizes the capitalists who create the wealth, and spends the wealth of an entire future generation because he simply can not imagine a world in which the government is not deeply and expensively involved in everything.

As to the school, I'm glad Malia can go there. It's a bubble in a number of different ways, but its safe and she will get a good if conventional education. She will not have to be too challenged by ideas that challenge the world view she is being fed, but some day she will have a chance to think for herself. Whether she uses that chance is up to her. For now she is simply a child.

Meanwhile Obama avoids the biggest issues in his passion to be reelected, and runs a campaign of fear and demagoguery. This after running as a new voice in politics. This in one of the most dangerous times our country has ever faced.

"When it's someone lecturing about how the rich people are bad, maybe a little bit, yeah.”

I’m sure in your mind, this happens every day. I’ve never seen anything close to this. Advocating for higher marginal tax rates is not class warfare. If it were, Reagan would be the king of class warriors.

I am a no good prick who has sent, and will send again, my kids to Mexico on supervised trips along with trusted chaperones and guides.

Are you asking OTHERS to foot the bill? If not, then your situation is not remotely comparable.

You may not value your children in the same way and you may wish your children not to come in contact with foreign cultures or think that Mexico is a hell hole as some other commenter put it.

That Mexico is a hellhole is not really a debatable point. I can cite crime statistics, murder stats, income stats, etc. Feel free to pick one.

North Korea has an interesting culture. Doesn't make N Korea a non-hellhole. Iran has an undeniably fascinating culture. Also --- a hellhole.

And, again, unless you are asking ME to send your kids on trips, then it is not comparable.

Worrying about the cost of this trip relative to the debt levels, ObamaCare and other outrages is like worrying about the flyshit in the pepper.

Don't worry. Every expenditure has the exact same level of defense as this does. I'm sure others will give up things when people like you are so interested in defending the Executive Branch wasting millions upon millions of family vacations.

I do hope that Malia will instill a love of travel in her children when she has them.

Will she pay for them?

If Obama was paying it ALL out of his own pocket, nobody would care. He is not, however.

Normally we say "[cost] is a small price to pay for [benefit]". But "being the daughter of the President" isn't a benefit -- it is a cost. I mean, I'm sure the daughters are happy their dad is important and famous, but don't you think they would rather not be going through puberty under the critical gaze of Obama's tens of millions of enemies?

Outside of Obama parading them for political benefit whenever possible --- who even notices his children?

And given that Presidential offspring with no discernible talents can get jobs at NBC in spite of a lack of talent, the benefits FAR outweigh the costs.

A Romney win, and conservatives can go back to not giving a shit about the First Lady, her children, and their security detail. Until the next Democrat comes along.

Number of international trips the Bush family took without the President is...what?

I don’t have any inside knowledge as Buffett’s tax preparation. There is nothing hypocritical about taking deductions that the law allows...while advocating for higher rates.

My first thought was actually about Jesus saying there would be wars and rumors of wars and famines and earthquakes. Then I prayed for the people of Mexico. And then I wondered if my friends planning a trip to Cancun next week would be able to go.

As for Malia and her 12 friends - what parent lets their 13 year old go to a foreign country without them? And what school sends a group of 13 year olds and chaperones to a country where drug cartels kidnap people on a daily or nearly daily basis? Terribly irresponsible all around I think...They could have taken a cultural trip to the Navajo reservation in the Four Corners or to Boston or Gettysburg or any number of SAFE historically significant places.

Don't worry. Every expenditure has the exact same level of defense as this does. I'm sure others will give up things when people like you are so interested in defending the Executive Branch wasting millions upon millions of family vacations.

That's just it.

Obama did his one big initiative for the year when he got $40/paycheck in SS tax withholding deductions.To put the pressure on, he asked Americans to let Republicans know what $40 meant to them.

If Obama understands that $40 is good money to some people, he surely understands that spending the equivalent of several families' yearly tax bill on every trip he (or his family) takes is using up someone's dear money for no real benefit to the country.

The other option, of course, is Obama doesn't think $40 is worth jack and he'll do anything to try make it look like he's accomplishing something.

Kchiker said..." Obama demonizes the capitalists who create the wealth”

I put the “Obama hates rich people” in the same trashbin as “Obama hates white people”,

I said he "demonizes" them, not that he hates them. He probably likes rich people as well as most other people and (based on his distance from his Kenyan relatives) a bit more than the poor. Demonization is a manipulation, a deliberate technique to advance his own interests by painting certain groups of others as selfish, unpatriotic and (quite often) evil.

Demonization is a deliberate lie to advance a self interest, and it's quite ugly, especially coming from the President of the United States. You heard damn little of it from George Bush.

I love the fact that of the many GOP'ers around the country literally comparing the poor to animals, simply for being poor, that is not demonizing another human being. But asking for a 3% marginal tax rate hike, somehow is.

Kchiker. In my view Obama is the worst president in my lifetime. That has nothing to do with his children and their right to be protected. Obama would do better to extoll the joys of getting rich than demonizing the rich and better to make it possible for more to get rich than to make it harder. But he hasnt and wont.

That said, he is a rich guy now who has sent his daughters to a rich person's private school in DC. Doubtless there are security people who take them to and fro and who observe the school and protect it on a daily basis. Why should we care? We shouldnt. I would worry more if he sent his children to DC public schools. That would suggest he cared less about their education than his own optics.

"Obama would do better to extoll the joys of getting rich than demonizing the rich and better to make it possible for more to get rich than to make it harder. But he hasnt and wont. “

Obama has repeatedly extolled the joys of living the American Dream. And yet he’s accused of hating America.

He recently stated that in tomorrow’s America, education would be the key to prosperity:

“Tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma.”

I agree that people use a lot of hyperbole when they pick on Obama and Michelle for being self-indulgent spenders of the "let them eat cake" variety, but hyperbole or not, it only works because of the element of truth in it. The vacations seem constant and excessive, as Michelle and the girls go to Europe or Aspen or where-ever the heck they're off to *this* time, while the rest of us are told not to frivolously spend our money on trips to Vegas.

I think that presidents *themselves* should only travel when absolutely necessary, and I've said so reliably and without partisan bias ever since Reagan was president. It disrupts everyone else when the president arrives, and it's expensive.

And now we've got a financial crisis on top of that.

Of course, knowing Democrats (like the ones in California) any government expense will be spun as job creation. Because, you know, 25 secret service people need jobs, too.

"Obama has repeatedly extolled the joys of living the American Dream. And yet he’s accused of hating America.

He recently stated that in tomorrow’s America, education would be the key to prosperity:"

When he says "get a business degree" or "be a banker" or "start a company", or "manufacture something commercially useful," wake me up.

The only specifics I've heard from that quarter are that graduates should get public service jobs to give back to the community. (ie., not productive occupations, but service, tax funded, professions.)

Actually... you know what bothers me about that quote? It's pushy. Like everyone should commit to a year or more of post secondary training for him, because he asked them to. Like they're doing it for someone else, like a service to other people or something.

It's more of Michelle's, "Obama won't let you..."

Bleh.

Palin knows how to cheer-lead. Obama scolds.

The scolding sounds snobbish. The cheer-leading sounds white-trash to the intellectual elite.